


i promise i'll fix it (it's all for a reason)

by icyshark



Category: Swiss Army Man (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hank and Manny met before the events of the movie, M/M, not necrophilia because I was very careful about it lol, obviously gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-09-21 03:04:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9529004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icyshark/pseuds/icyshark
Summary: One day, Hank meets a man named Manny on the bus.A month later, Manny washes up dead on the island Hank is stranded on.They save each other. They survive. And it is beautiful.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Can someone enlighten me as to why there aren't more fanworks in general for this incredible piece of art? Love this movie, love these two, hope I did them justice. Unbeta'd and written after midnight, forgive my poor grammar and spelling.

_Sun, filtering through leaves and setting her red hair aflame. Her eyes, trained on his, sparkling with laughter like the sparkles in the nearly-empty champagne bottle on the flannel picnic blanket. It belonged to her grandmother. The entire picnic set -- the basket, the dishes, all of it -- belonged to her grandmother. Her mother scolded her, saying she’d get it dirty and that they needed to save it for special occasions. Sarah told her that any occasion is special if you’re with someone special. Her grandmother thought so too._

  
“Hey.”

  
_They’re smiling at each other like idiots and they just can’t stop. It’s a beautiful day in their beautiful lives, and Hank is so happy he wonders if he’s dead after all. But she’s right there in front of him, and he has to soak up every moment before--_

  
“Hey.”

  
Hank snaps out of his daydream in a panic, all but ripping one earbud out of his ear to look at the man standing in the aisle, staring at him. He really needed to stop daydreaming on the bus.

  
“You sitting alone?” the man asked neutrally, gesturing to the seat beside Hank. Hank shot a frantic glance at Sarah, but she wasn’t looking at him. Still, he hesitated before nodding. He didn’t want her to think he was some kind of freak.

  
“So you’re a freak,” the guy said, not asked, casually. He was still standing in the aisle. The grin on his face was crooked in a charming way and a glimmer of mischief flickered in his big blue eyes.

  
Hank blinked in shock. Who was this guy, a fucking mind reader? “What?”

  
Smoothly, the guy slid into the seat beside him. “Now you’re not.”

  
 _Am I being hit on right now?_ What in the fucking shit--

  
“Uh,” Hank stuttered, sweat starting to bead on his forehead. His confusion and discomfort were tongue-tying him like a fucking Boy Scout knot. “Yeah,” he laughed nervously, moving to slide his earbud back into his ear.

  
“What are you listening to?” The Guy (now capitalized in Hank’s mind because he still doesn’t know this dude’s name) continued, gesturing to Hank’s phone. The Guy was far too comfortable right now, and it was making Hank’s acute awareness of his own social ineptitude even more crippling as the seconds crept by.

  
“Uh, um,” he mumbled, swiping his phone off his knee quickly and checking the track. He knew what he was fucking listening to, obviously, but something about this Guy was making him nervous. His brain felt like a bowl of spaghetti.

  
Only one thing mattered at this point: escape. How did he dig himself out of this awkward, self-loathing pit he’d dug himself into by being an incompetent prick? With funny. Funny is disarming, funny is relatable. Plus, he had a feeling that if he executed it well, The Guy would probably be receptive.

  
Hank steeled himself. “Oh, just, uh, ‘Mistletoe,’ the classic hit from Justin Bieber’s 2011 Christmas album.”

  
The Guy’s eyebrows went up in shock and his smile widened. He snorted a little but nodded, still smiling. “Alright man, that’s alright.”

  
Seeing The Guy laugh with him instead of at him sent a wave of relief over Hank, and he laughed a little in response. “I’m, I’m kidding, man.”

  
“No, no, that’s cool,” The Guy insisted calmly, holding up his hands. “There’s no shame in im- _Bieb_ -ing a little from time to time.”

  
Jesus christ, the man was making puns. Shamefully, Hank could not get over how fucking cool this weird dude seemed. Who the hell sits down next to a stranger on the bus, only to assure him that his (totally invented) obsession with Justin Bieber was even somewhat acceptable on any social measure? It made him bizarre, certainly, but also likeable. Of all things Hank was expecting to happen today, this was not one of them.

  
“I’m Manny,” The Guy finally clarified, extending his hand. Hank took it, hoping to god that his palms weren’t actually as sweaty as they felt. If they were, Manny didn’t react, smile still pinned to his face.

  
Hank tried his best to look how a normal human should look while introducing themselves to a stranger on the bus. “Uh, I’m Hank.”

  
“Hank,” Manny repeated thoughtfully. His eyes jumped back and forth between Hank’s like he was working hard to memorize his face. “Nice to meet you, Hank.”

  
Hank nodded tightly and stared out the window again, unsure where to go with the conversation from there. For better or for worse, Manny spoke again.

  
“Hank, do you mind if I listen to your music with you?”

  
Again, Hank was stunned. “Sorry, what?”

  
Manny furrowed his brows apologetically. “I know it’s a strange request, but my phone got obliterated a couple days ago and I still haven’t picked up a replacement,” he said, shaking his head. “Got completely flattened by a taxi. It was very tragic.”

  
“Sounds like it,” Hank agreed quietly, twirling his headphone cord between his fingers.

  
“Anyway, I just… I hoped you’d let me poach some music,” Manny finished tentatively, expression hopeful. “I saw that you were listening to something and I kinda go nuts if I don’t have my music when I’m on the bus.”

  
Hank nodded once in understanding. In a way, he sympathized with Manny. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if he couldn’t space out for his commute. Slowly, he nodded again.

  
“Yeah, sure man.”

  
“Thank you so much,” Manny said with a smile, reaching over Hank’s shoulder to slip the other earbud out of his left ear. Hank tried his best not to shit his pants at the near contact. It had been so long since he’d touched another human being.

  
“I’m, uh,” Hank choked, trying to collect himself. “I’m not actually listening to Justin Bieber.”

  
Manny laughed, and the sound was round and crisp. “I know. Whatever you have is fine by me.”

  
And so the two men put the earbuds in their ears and sat together in silence. It was very, very weird to share such a congested space with someone, connected by cord and sound, and not actually interact with them in any way. Occasionally, Manny’s shoulder would brush up against Hank’s from the motion of the bus, but beyond that they did not touch or speak to each other.

  
Hank took this time to carefully study Manny out of the corner of his eye. He had pale skin and thick eyebrows, complimented by messy but well groomed dark hair. He was in a button down shirt, a tie, and a casual suit, but he didn’t carry a briefcase or anything, so his job was a total mystery. His eyes darted around quickly in a way that reminded Hank a little bit of a frog, and while it was strange, it made Hank think he probably had a quick brain too. Manny had to be witty to have come up with that fucking Bieber pun so quickly.

  
Eventually, the bus stopped and Manny rose to his feet, handing the earbud back to Hank. Strangely, Hank didn’t want him to go.

  
“Thanks so much, Hank, you really saved me today.”

  
Hank shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Yeah, sure. It’s no big deal.”

  
“See you around,” Manny smiled, then frowned, patting the back of the seat and spinning to face the front of the bus. Hank couldn’t take his eyes off him. With the same charisma he showed Hank, he thanked the bus driver and wished him a nice day. As the bus departed, Manny strolled down the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets, looking like he didn’t have a care in the world.

  
Hank was so hypnotized by Manny’s departure that he almost forgot to check if Sarah was paying attention to that weird interaction, but no, she was still scribbling away in that adorable purple journal of hers. She tucked her hair behind her ears and moved her head slightly, but Hank spun around before she could look at him and make eye contact.

  
He spent the rest of the ride and the walk home in a state of utter confusion. Confusion tinted, of course, by self-doubt and self-loathing.

  
Had he seriously thought, even for a moment, that he’d had a genuine moment of connection with a random stranger on the bus? Manny himself said he only sat with Hank so he could listen to his music. Was he such a friendless loser that thirty minutes with a guy he just met made him feel like an actual human being? I mean jesus, next he’d be palling around with the pizza guy, trying and failing to crack Justin Bieber jokes. He might as well, though. They saw each other often enough.

  
Would he ever see Manny again, though? Hank had never seen him on the bus before, and he didn’t really seem like a bus-riding type with his suit and everything. Maybe it was because he had no phone to call an Uber? Or the destruction of his phone had led to a deep-seated fear and mistrust of taxis, thus forcing him to find an alternate means of transportation?

  
Hank trudged up the stairs and stood in front of the door to his apartment, sighing heavily and thumping his forehead against it. His dad always said that his greatest strength and his biggest downfall was his brain. Couldn’t shut it off, couldn’t make it do anything useful, but damn if he didn’t have an imagination on him.

  
Inside, Hank wondered if he should even lock the door. If someone broke in, there’d be nothing to steal, and someone murdering him in his sleep would actually be welcomed at this point. He dropped his keys haphazardly onto the counter and his eyes caught on the litterbox next to his shitty old TV. Dull pain ached in his chest. Chester died four months ago, but Hank just couldn’t bring himself to throw any of the cat stuff out. When Chester left, then Hank really had nothing and nobody. He couldn’t be alone. It was pathetic, but he wanted to cling to Chester’s memory for as long as he could.

 

* * *

  
Taking the boat out was a bad idea, but Hank was tired of living his shitty, hopeless, predictable life. He was desperate at this point. His world was full of maybe’s, and the particular maybe that struck him today was, _maybe if I take the boat out, the fresh ocean air will make me not want to kill myself anymore_.

  
The truth was that he still wanted to kill himself, and no amount of sea spray was going to change that. The decision to commandeer his dad’s old sailboat was still rooted firmly in the dim possibility that maybe a storm would sweep him overboard and he’d drown and then it would all be over and he could finally just fucking _stop_. At this point, he was willing to try anything.

  
He tried to OD on Ambien his first year of college, before he dropped out for the first time. No one noticed, and all he did was spend a night in front of the toilet and probably some serious damage to his internal organs. Still, it didn’t kill him. Too much of a coward to try again, Hank just crawled along in his meaningless existence, finding a job as a software engineer at a tiny, shitty firm, and caring for no one except his mangy shelter cat.

  
Now he was utterly, completely alone, and he had nothing to show for himself. So why the hell not take the boat out? Why not just say “fuck it all” and piss off his responsibilities for the day?

  
The grey clouds clumping in the distance might count as a pretty good reason, actually. Hank was torn between his fierce desire to not exist and his fear of surviving through pain. He was tired of hurting; that was the whole point.

  
He kept going. The waves grew choppier and choppier, and he was struggling to control the sail. The ropes were twisting and slicing at his hands, and he was sliding all over the deck. His dad hadn’t checked on the boat in months or years, probably, and the wear on it was really fucking Hank right now.

  
With each wave that crashed over the boat and sprayed cold saltwater into his face, Hank felt a renewed horror. Soon it would be too much, and soon the water would rip him out of his seat and yank him down into the mouth of the hungry ocean. He was too pathetic to just give up and let himself drown, still too much of a fucking coward to even do that right, so clung to the rope and squeezed his eyes shut with every buck of the waves.

  
His eyes were closed when he finally capsized, flung into the ocean and crushed by the weight of the boat. His head hit the wood and he knocked himself out. There was no life flashing before his eyes, no vision of anything beautiful. Only darkness.

 

* * *

  
Hank stopped bothering to keep track of the days. He was hungry and smelly and dirty and, worst of all, alone with himself. Maybe he did drown and this was hell, because if Hank could imagine a hell for himself, it would just be him alone with all his thoughts for all eternity. He’d already screamed and cried and punched all of the feelings out. There was no fight left in him. There was no hope. It took this much to finally force his hand and make him just fucking do it.

  
So he tied a noose from the sharp synthetic rope of the destroyed sailboat and secured it to the top of the cave he took shelter in. It wasn’t ideal to die this way, dangling and struggling and suffocating, but it was the best he had. He had no interest in drowning himself again, and there was nothing sharp enough to nick any arteries with, so this was the best way to do it. Sure, he could have just starved to death or succumbed to dehydration, but those were way worse. That took days or even weeks. Hanging took like five minutes.

  
He was going to tighten the knot, sing the song his mom used to sing, and then step off the cooler and hang there until he died. He was going to have his vision of beauty. Everything was perfect, he had this amazing plan worked out, and then it all went to shit.

  
Because there was a guy lying on the beach.

  
A guy.

  
A human being.

  
Lying on the beach.

  
Hank was so shocked his body just kept going and stepped right off that cooler without his permission. No, god, not now, not now when _there’s a dude on the fucking beach_.

  
Mercifully, that shitty, rotting rope snapped and oxygen seared Hank’s windpipe as his ass hit the sand hard. He gave himself a second to choke and cough his way back to life before he scrambled over to the man lying on the beach.

  
“Hey, _hey_!” he croaked. Realistically, he knew this was probably a body and not a person he was talking to, but what kind of dumbass would he be if he didn’t at least try? “Hey, are you okay? Are you okay? Please don’t be dead, don’t be… fuck.”

  
Something about the cold, pale face staring back at him was tugging at something in his brain. Who is this? Does Hank know him? Yes, definitely, but from where?

  
It didn’t really matter, he guessed, because the man was dead anyway. Hank rested his head on the corpse’s chest and let himself have a minute to mourn. He was going to die alone after all.

  
Hank turned his head and rested his ear on the dead man’s chest. “You know, I’d always hoped that right before I died my life would flash before my eyes and I would see wonderful things, but… as I was hanging up there, I didn’t really see much of anything,” he said tiredly, looking up at the corpse’s face. “But I did see you. And I can’t help feeling like… I don’t know. I feel like I know --”

  
A rumbling from the man’s chest interrupted Hank. With a gasp, Hank followed the sound to the dead man’s gut until a comical, loud fart shocked him back onto his heels.

  
A little laugh. “That was funny,” Hank breathed to himself, smiling. “That was really funny.”

  
Determined, Hank slipped the belt from his new dead buddy’s hips and went to go hang himself again. Once again, he was going to sing his mother’s song and then gently choke to death, but he was interrupted… by farts. The supposedly dead guy just could not stop releasing gas, so much gas that his body started to float away on it.

  
Hank couldn’t believe any of it. Couldn’t believe the body, the farts, or the fact that he was chasing this corpse down with the intention of riding him like a jetski propelled by farts. But he was fucking doing it, and he was getting off this island by any means necessary.

 

* * *

  
He just couldn’t leave him behind. Hank was so, so exhausted and hungry, too tired to even carry himself to safety, but the same thought kept picking at the back of his head: _you know him, Hank. You can’t leave him, you know him_.

  
He slept next to him in the cave, talked to him like a person, and discovered his incredible power. Water, so much water, just pouring from his mouth like a cracked fire hydrant. And then when he couldn’t give Hank water, he gave him a name.

  
“Maaahh… Nnneeee…” he wheezed. Hank laughed, a sharp, shocked noise, and rested his head against the dead man’s, staring into those big blue eyes.

  
“Holy shit,” he breathed in disbelief. “Holy shit, I do know you. You’re Manny, you’re Manny and I met you on the bus. I know you, I do know you! Oh my god!”

  
Impulsively, Hank kissed his forehead. “I’m Hank,” he said excitedly, taking Manny’s jaw in his hand and manipulating his mouth, coaching his tongue to form the words. “Hello, Hank,” he said slowly, tugging at Manny’s face.

  
Manny couldn’t stop gurgling, though, and Hank didn’t have time. He needed someone now, he needed help now, he needed Manny _now_. He was desperate.

  
“How do you expect anybody to want to talk to you if you sound retarded?” Hank snapped, shoving himself away from Manny and falling onto his back. Oh, no. He cradled his face in his hands and groaned. “I sound like my dad.”

  
What a way to meet again. The slightly reanimated corpse of a man Hank met on a bus a month ago somehow found its way to him when he was lost all alone, jettisoned him to safety with his ass, and now he was hurling abuse and using slurs like his father used to do to him?

  
“I’m sorry,” he sighed, sitting up to try again. Manny didn’t deserve this, not after saving his life so much already. “Hey, I didn’t mean that. You can talk however you want, okay?” Hank thought of what he wishes his dad had told him. “You can mumble and look at your feet all day long, okay buddy?”

  
A beat passed.

  
“Okay, buddy,” Manny blurted haltingly.

  
Hank punched him in the face.

 

* * *

  
_I’m gonna help you remember. I need you to remember, Manny. Remember the bus, remember me, live with me in the beautiful life I always wanted to live. Help me find my way home, Manny, so we can both learn to live again._

 

* * *

  
It felt natural to become Sarah. This was, after all, the golden opportunity to watch the life he wanted play out before him. His love for Sarah was flat and hollow and pathetic, but Manny helped him bring love to life in a way he never could have alone.

  
Their life in the woods was everything Hank had ever wanted. They had parties and vacations, sure, but they took drives together, rode the bus together, and cooked together too. Hank imagined what Manny would look like in his kitchen, barefoot in front of the stove with eggs and bacon frying in the pan. He imagined Manny passing out drinks to friends Hank didn’t have, smiling and laughing with that incredible charm of his. He imagined Manny asleep on the couch, a white cat curled up on his chest, both of their bodies softly rising and falling with their breath.

  
But Hank’s sadness was starting to infect Manny. He couldn’t help it. Manny asked too many hard questions, brought up too much heavy shit for Hank’s oppressive sadness not to infect the conversation. He didn’t want to bring up his mom, or his dad, or how useless and awful he was, but those things made him who he was. Something about Manny made him want to be honest, just like when they first met, amplified by his amnesia. Hank had nothing to lose and everything to gain by opening up to Manny. If it brought him back to life, it was worth it.

  
It was fucking terrifying. Everything was new. Hank had never had anyone in his life like this, anyone he could laugh and sing and dance with and feel safe and… _loved_ when he was with them. And love is scary and new and he couldn’t believe that someone accepted him and wanted him to be happy, especially not a someone that was a lifeless corpse a few days ago.

  
They survived, and they did it together. When the bear found them and gored Hank’s leg, he looked to Manny. When Manny wanted to die again, he looked to Hank. Manny saved Hank from the brink of death, and Hank pulled Manny out of death and onto the brink of life. They equaled each other in every way.

 

* * *

  
Why, _why_ did Manny have to drag him into Sarah’s yard? Why couldn’t he let her go? Why couldn’t he stop caring about what she thought of him? They fell to the ground, and Hank hid his face in Manny’s chest.

  
“Hank, what are you doing?” Manny asked, trying to pull and drag Hank into a sitting position.

  
“We can’t be here, I can’t see her,” Hank whispered, clinging to Manny’s jacket.

  
Manny furrowed his eyebrows. “Are you kidding? Now’s our chance! To tell Sarah how much we love her!”

  
“No, Manny,” Hank sighed, not bearing to look at him. “No, because I don’t love Sarah. I never did. I can’t, I don’t…”

  
“What?” Manny said, hurt. “What do you mean, you don’t love her? What was all that in the woods? What, I don’t, I don’t understand,” he spluttered, tugging at Hank harder to force him to look at him. “We built it all for her.”

  
God, he didn’t want to have this conversation, especially not here. But it all had to come out eventually, like the truth always does. Like farts always do.

  
“We need to get out of here,” Hank said, shoving Manny back towards the woods. “They can’t see us, we have to go.”

  
“What? Why?” Manny asked, shoving back. There was so much emotion in his face, more than Hank had seen since he last saw Manny truly alive.

  
Hank sighed again, grabbing Manny by the shoulders. “What if they look at you and they don’t see what I see? What if they think--”

  
“That’s stupid,” Manny grunted, shoving Hank onto his back and pinning him down, hips on top of Hank’s and hands grasping Hank’s wrists tightly. “All this time you’ve been poking me and prodding me, making me spit, making me cry…” Manny stopped to take a breath, and Hank arched his back in a lame attempt to shove Manny off of him. He could feel it, the pressure building in his chest. A scream perched in the back of his throat. “How come I never get to see you do any of that stuff?”

  
“Because I’m _scared_! Okay?” Hank answered sharply. As much as he wanted to close his eyes, he couldn’t look away from the way Manny’s expression crumpled at his admission. It was like he was looking straight through him, straight into every part of who he was, and the feeling was like being ripped apart. “Because you knew who I was before I got lost, and… because I’m just a scared, ugly, useless person.”

  
Manny looked so tortured in that moment that Hank thought he might cry again. “Maybe everyone’s a little bit ugly,” Manny started, loosening his grip on Hank’s wrists. A thought hit him and his mouth twitched. “Yeah, maybe we’re all just ugly, dying sacks of shit,” he said with a sniffle, staring into Hank’s eyes. “And maybe all it’ll take is just one person to be okay with that, and then the whole world will be dancing, and singing, and farting, and everyone will feel a little bit less alone.”

  
Hank wanted to pull Manny into his arms. He wanted to cup his cheeks and shake him and tell him how amazing he was and that everything he just described was how Manny made him feel.

  
It was so much. All that came out was, “Manny, you have no idea how nice that sounds.” Fuck, that wasn’t enough. It was wrong, it didn’t explain good enough how he felt.

  
Manny’s eyes changed, just slightly, and his voice broke. “Hank, I do remember. I know Jurassic Park, right? I can see you on the bus, us sitting together and listening to your music.” He was more alive now, but he still didn't have good inflection control, and Hank could still tell when he was lying. Hank furrowed his brow, but Manny shook his head. “No, not ‘Sarah,’ you. I remember you, Hank. I remember your smile, and your laugh, and how nervous you were. You were so lonely, Hank…”

  
Hank was about to speak when a tiny voice interrupted him.

  
“Hello.”

  
It was a little girl, clutching a green stuffed frog close to her chest. Sarah’s daughter, Krissy. Hank recognized her from Sarah’s Instagram posts. He winced at the thought and froze up.

  
“Are you dressed up for Halloween?”

  
Even though they both knew Manny was alive, he still looked pretty pale and, well, corpse-y. Hank couldn’t speak, too shocked by the real life Krissy to form cognizant thought. Manny sensed his hesitation and jumped in.

  
“No, we just need some help,” he said, struggling to pull Hank up to sit next to him. “My name is Manny, and this is my best friend, Hank.” Manny looked into his eyes briefly, focus flickering quickly to Hank’s mouth and then back to Krissy. He held Hank tighter. “I used to be dead but then he brought me back to life, and we were lost out there in the woods for a very long time, but we survived because I have special powers.”

  
It was subtle, at first, but Hank could hear Manny’s heart pounding harder in his chest. His body almost seemed warm. Manny lifted his hand, clearly about to punch himself and spit water.

  
“Manny, wait, don’t,” Hank breathed, reaching to stop him too late.

  
Manny smashed his fist into his gut, but nothing happened. He looked at Hank, confused. He shifted his position on the ground, trying to fart, but nothing happened there either. Panic washed over Manny’s face.

  
“Hank, what’s happening?”

  
Hank couldn’t stop the smile and the tears. “Manny, I think you’re alive,” he said breathlessly, placing a hand on Manny’s chest. There it was, sure as day: a heartbeat. Slow, steady, and strong. Like Manny.

  
Manny blinked and a tear rolled down his cheek. “What? No, I’m… what are we going to do if I don’t have--” he was cut off by his body jerking back. His face twisted into an awful expression, and he looked like he was in terrible pain.

  
“Manny?” Hank said with some alarm, catching Manny as he fell backwards. His body was twitching and writhing on the ground, and Hank shook him by the shoulders a little. “Manny, what’s happening?”

  
All at once, he stopped moving.

  
“No, no, no,” Hank moaned, pulling Manny’s face close to his. “Don’t do this, Manny, come on.” He moved his ear to Manny’s chest to listen.

  
Nothing.

  
“Krissy?”

  
Sarah’s voice sliced through the cloud in Hank’s mind, but the world was still a blur. There was ice water in his hand, and then there were ambulances and cameras and Sarah and her husband and oh, god, they put Manny in a body bag for fuck’s sake.

  
Hank did what he did best and hid. He hid and listened to the world around him while it all passed him by.

  
Two EMTs wheeled Manny’s gurney towards the ambulance.

  
“This is some fucked up shit. You really think he just found the body?”

  
“These abrasions here seem to have happened post-mortem, but discoloration on the abdomen tells me he’s probably a bridge jumper. They wash up on the shore all the time, so it checks out.”

  
Hank’s throat closed. Manny killed himself? Why? He seemed so calm and happy and alive that day on the bus. Hank wracked his brain. What was he wearing? Did he meet Manny on the day that he killed himself? A wave of nausea rolled over him, but he couldn’t stop listening.

  
“What do they do with him now?”

  
“Well, he’ll spend two weeks in the morgue while we try to figure out who the hell he is, and then when no one claims the body because no one ever does, the county can pay for a funeral that no one’ll show up to, because obviously no one cared about this son of a bitch to begin with.”

  
Hank had enough.

  
“That’s not true,” he snapped, hobbling after them on his crutches and placing a firm hand on the gurney. “I care about him, and I’m not just gonna let you throw him away.”

  
“Sir, please take your hand off the gurney,” the shorter man said angrily, trying to yank Hank’s hand off.

  
“No!” Hank bellowed, wheeling Manny closer. He didn’t know what it would take, what magic touch would bring Manny back to life, but he had to try. They’d been through to much for Hank to just let these strangers put Manny in the ground. “No, I won’t. This is Manny. He’s my best friend and he is not dead, he’s _alive_ ,” Hank said loudly, trying to make Manny hear. “He’s alive,” he repeated, leaning in close to Manny’s face this time.

  
“Look buddy, you need to get off of him,” the tall guy said this time, marching over to Hank but not putting his hands on him.

  
“Maybe they’ll think we’re weird, and maybe no one will ever understand who we are, to each other and to the world, but I don’t care,” Hank whispered quickly, voice shaking. “I don’t want to hide you, Manny, and I don’t want to hide myself anymore either. I need you, buddy. We have to depend on each other now, right?” Manny didn’t respond, and Hank rested his forehead on Manny’s. “Just please, please don’t be dead.”

  
Nothing. Hank’s heart sank, but he wouldn’t give up. He couldn’t.

  
While the big guy shoved him and tried to pull him back, Hank fought to hang onto Manny. “I know you’re alive, Manny! Wake up!” he shouted, kicking the man’s shin with his bad leg and gritting his teeth through the pain. He balled his hands together like they teach you in CPR training and took a deep breath. “I said, _wake up_!”

  
He brought his fists down hard onto Manny’s chest.

  
On impact, Manny gasped and swung straight up, letting out a loud fart as he did.

  
Everyone was silent, completely stunned by what they saw, but Hank stumbled around so that he could see Manny face to face.

  
He looked good. Color was flooding back into his features, and for once both of his eyelids were open all the way. He took one look at Hank and was already on the verge of tears.

  
“Hank, I remember you,” he said in disbelief, taking Hank’s hand in his own. “For real this time. I sat next to you on the bus that day, the day…” he trailed off, still staring at Hank in wonder.

  
“The day you killed yourself?” Hank whispered, squeezing Manny’s hand.

  
Manny looked down. “Yeah.”

  
“Manny, I’m sorry,” Hank said emphatically, holding Manny’s hand to his chest. Out of the corner of his eye, he was aware of the cameras and EMTs swarming them, even thought he saw his father’s truck roll up to the house, but in that moment, it was just Hank and Manny. “I wish I would have known. I could have--”

  
Manny shook his head. “No, you couldn’t. And it’s okay,” he said, resting a hand on Hank’s dirty hair. “I wouldn’t have wanted this any other way.”

  
“How the fuck is that dude alive?” One of the EMTs said, interrupting the scene. A cameraman and reporter rushed over, eager to stick their nose in Hank and Manny’s business too.

  
“Sir, sir, please explain to us what’s happening here!” she said enthusiastically, shoving the microphone in Hank and Manny’s general direction. They shared a look, Hank nodded, and Manny took the microphone from her.

  
“My name is Manny, and this is Hank. We were both… lost, separately, out on the ocean and in the forest. But then we found each other,” he said softly, wrapping his arm around Hank’s shoulder and pulling him close. “We found each other and we survived.” He looked at the reporter’s plastic smile, then straight into the camera. “We sang, and we danced, and we farted, and it was beautiful.”

  
Hank couldn’t help but laugh. Manny was right, back there on the lawn. Hank could see their curling lips, the shocked expressions, the disgusted quirking of eyebrows, but none of it mattered. He was still scared, still ugly, and still useless, but he didn’t care anymore because so was Manny. They could be disgusting, dying, worthless sacks of shit together, and neither of them even had to die to do it.

  
Their new life would be just as beautiful as the old one. They’d make friends with the pizza guy, they’d talk to their coworkers, they’d meet more people on the bus, they’d talk to their parents and rebuild all the burned bridges, because life was too precious and too short. They could get a new shelter kitty, a white one, and name her Lucille. Mann would move in and they’d make breakfast for each other and watch movies together and sing until their throats were raw.

  
Manny caught Hank’s eye through the flashes of cameras and the onslaught of questions. Slowly, they leaned toward each other.

  
The acrid voice of his father pierced Hank’s head.

  
_What would your mother think?_

  
Hank smiled and brushed his lips tenderly to Manny’s.

  
_I think she would be happy that somebody loves me._


End file.
